Unless you are one of the few people that are capable of maintaining a 24 hour server in their home with secure domain registration, you’ll be searching for a new host when your company launches. This article is specifically written to help out new individuals in their quest to better understand the power of server hosting and the companies that rely upon it.
Look at your web hosting site to figure out what kind of websites they offer. Some free sites do not allow you to add your own scripts to the static pages they offer. If you have the need for dynamic scripting pages, your only option may be to find a pay host that is affordable instead.
You can almost always save money on your web hosting by paying in advance. Discounts for multi-month and yearly packages are common. However, you don’t want to lock in with an unreliable host. Try out a new host for a month or two before you lock in a long-term commitment, and check out the cancellation and refund policy beforehand.
Register domains separately from your hosting provider. That way, if there’s trouble between you and your hosting provider, your host won’t try to hold your domain name hostage. Your host will have the control of your domain registration.
If you’re just building your first website, opt for shared hosting. There are two main types of hosting on offer: shared, which is cheap, but has fewer options, and dedicated, in which you get the works and lots of customizability, but you pay for the privilege. Good shared hosting plans can be had for just a few dollars a month.
When choosing your web hosting service, do not rely on someone’s recommendation, or only on the info you’ve read online. Most services have affiliate programs and the people recommending the service may not have any direct experience with it. You should take more than recommendations into consideration when choosing your web host.
Before choosing your web host, you should always try calling their technical support and ask a few questions. If you can talk to a representative right away, this means their customer service is efficient. If you cannot talk to anyone at anytime of the day or night, you should look for another service.
A free host is one web hosting option for new website owners. Remember that free hosts rarely offer backup features. If you go with this option, you should be diligent in backing up your own data. You’ll need to keep a full backup yourself to get your site back up if anything happens to cause it to disappear.
Never register your domain with your web hosting service. Many people mistakenly do this, and then realize later they can’t transfer their site over to another web hosting service. This can happen when a company goes offline and bust or for other various reasons. Make sure you register your domain with a different company than your web hosting provider.
Remember, you don’t absolutely have to run out and grab the most expensive hosting package that’s available. Take long, relaxed periods where you evaluate the bandwidth caps, advertisement restrictions, domain availability, pricing, and other miscellaneous factors that will form your overall decision. Plan ahead and you should only have to face this choice once for any given domain.